What does your last name say about you? You didn’t choose it, but might be fair to say that people will assume things about you based on your last name. I can think of a few last names in our pocket of NW Iowa that make me think:

• That’s a family of hard-working farmers
• Never seen that family take a day off, always pushing forward
• They’ve been an incredibly generous family in our community for years
• That family has been instrumental in the building up of our local schools

If not your character, your last name will obviously say something about your family heritage. Back in the day of Jesus that is where genealogies came in; a genealogy would tell an individual which tribe you originally hailed from. Take a moment to read about the Genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1

What’s different from Jesus’ genealogy compared to others in that time is that it included the names of woman, what’s more is even some woman with questionable character. A few of those names include:

Rahab: Rahab, a prostitute, helped to hide the spies that Joshua sent in to scope out Jericho. She ended up marrying Salmon who was one of those spies sent in. Their relationship was a key cog in the lineage that brings us to Jesus.

Bathsheba: Bathsheba, the Mother of Solomon, was the Wife of someone else. However David’s act of adultery is another key cog in the lineage that brings us to Jesus.

Mary: Mary was the Earthly Mother of Jesus, pregnant before marriage. Certainly looked down upon and judged for her 'actions', but yet another key cog in the lineage of Jesus.

We see in the genealogy of Jesus that God doesn’t only work in the lives of astute and respected men, but also in the lives of woman, even at times scandalous woman. God doesn’t look at people like we do, assuming who they are by their last name or where they came from, He looks at their Heart and uses any and all for His purpose.

Photo Credit: Roman Kraft via unsplash.com